Thanks much again David. This is where we really miss the GW WE wiki, because you could have taken this message and expanded it into an "internationalizing" article, which would have been available to every developer; and which you could easily update as time and further ideas occurred to you (or anyone). So, GW, would you reconsider the wiki with your new partner?
I'll go change my prompts to be country code for now, and I'll see about finding an official list of country names and codes. Thanks. Chip -----Original Message----- From: David [mailto:trailerda...@hotmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 12:41 AM To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com Subject: Re: another beta (0.5.0) of Remind Me Where Chip, Just a couple of notes. First of all, the link you provided in your mail, was not recognized as a link by Thunderbird. Arrowing to it, and then hitting Enter, nothing happened. Had to copy the text, and paste it into the address field of the browser. Just wanted to mention it. Secondly, in the Options dialog of your app. You are asking for street, city and state, and all of that is fine enough. Then I get to the Country field. I start to type the name of my country, but it seems only the two first letters are accepted. Is this correct? Basically, to me it seems you are using the country code here, which is fine with me. Yet, if so, maybe you should let the user know, that is what your app expect him to enter. Let me give you the following example, for illustrative purposes. If you are in a country like Denmark, Europe, the two-character country code, is DK. If the user does not know that is what he is expected to enter, he will start entering the full countryname - DENMARK. Your app - if I get it right - will only take the first two characters, meaning D E, in our example. Funny thing is, that the letter combination D E, is the country code for the neighboring country - that is, Germany. OOPS. You land in a totally different country. Smile. Could be an interesting "quick little walk before bedtime". Smile. Suggestion: Either specify that the user is to enter the two-character country code, maybe even make a combobox for him to scroll through to find the official code. Or, let the edit field accept the full country name, as well as the alternative two-character code, and then handle the entry internally in your app. The best suggestion, the way I see it, based on the fact your app is going internationally, is the combobox. The entries here could be taken from the XML file, or other sources. Here too, let me give you the example to illustrate why. For many countries, there is a domestic name, and the official International name. It is not always obvious for a user, who only knows his domestic country name, what the international one would be. Here is but a handful samples, showing the differences between the two names for some countries. In the following list, I have put the international name in the left, and the domestic (or national) name in the right. Germany Deutschland Denmark Danmark Norway Norge Sweden Sverige Finland Suomi ---End of list--- What does this mean for your app? If you let the user enter his country name, and he happens to enter the domestic version, the two first characters would likely not harmonize with any valid country code. If you let him enter the full name, and then attempt to handle the name internally in your code, trying to match it with a two-character code - chances are high, that your code will fail. Hence, building with internationalizing in mind, directly from scrach, may save you a bit of hazzle down the road - once your app will take the final plunge and get translated into other languages. Make a combobox, that will hold both the two-character code, and the full name of the country, in the currently active language. So your combobox may look like this: DE, Germany DK, Denmark SW, Sweden UK, Great Britain US, United States ...And so forth. All the entries, like I suggested, could be taken from an XML file, or some other easily edittable list. When the user - in an upcoming internationalized version - would choose another language for his operation of your app, the entries in the combobox would still hold the international two-character code, but now would have the full country names translated into what is commonly known in the given language. Here is the above sample list, in a version that actually happens by chance, to be identical in both Norwegian and Danish: DE, Tyskland DK, Danmark SW, Sverige UK, Storbritania US, Amerikanske stater ... and so forth. Notice that the two-character code, is the same, and your app can reliably base its further activity on the chosen code. Still, in the translated version, the user will be presented with the name he is familiar with for every country, independingly on whether this makes an immediate sense with the two-character code. If you do not know, that the two-character code for Germany is DE, my guess is that most English users would have a hard time in figuring this to be the case. If you want to enter the two-character code for Poland, you would maybe have thought it would do with the letters P and O? Here is a morning surprise for you. Poland has the international country code of PL. Try guessing that one, without knowing it. Smile. Therefore, a combobox that gives the user a name he knows, and connects it with the international two-character code for your app to swallow, may be the best way to have things done. Even for the English users, who want to explore abroad, as shown with the examples of Germany and Poland above. I hope all of this makes any sense. Unless you are used to multi-lingual stuff, or have done a few trips abroad, this may likely be new to most users - and developers alike. I therefore decided to let this rather detailed message go public on the list. Hopefully, this will stand as a reminder for everyone who later wants to prepare their app for translations, or who develops apps that need to handle cross-boarder stuff. Sorry, guys, but not even google Translator will help you with this one. Only human knowledge, either by personal experience, or thorough study on the net. Smile. Any further questions on the matter, please ask. either I, or other internationalized users, wil try our best to help you out with cases like this. BTW, right off-hand, I am not sure if all countries are doing two-character codes. Seem to remember there would be a few who has a three-character international code. You may want to look that one up on the net, since that was derived straight from a messy memory. Smile. David On 6/11/2014 2:18 AM, Chip Orange wrote: > > Hi all beta testers, > > > > Thanks again for reports, testing, and suggestions. The latest beta is now ready at: > > https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11745142/Remind_Me_Where.wepm > > > > > > > > *** What's new since last beta *** > > > > > > > > * Added "radar search" as a choice for search type, in the Searching Criteria dialog. This allows you to look at places which meet your searching criteria, by viewing the results for each of the 8 compass cardinal directions (from your starting point) separately. e.g., you can see all of the ATM units which are to the north of your starting point in one listview. You can easily switch between the 8 various directions by using hotkeys defined from the numeric keypad, which are laid out roughly in the same pattern as the 8 directions. This should help you get a better feel for the actual relative physical locations of the places. > > > > * Now in the treeview of directions, when Google shows a highway name having two or 3 possible names separated by slashes, the treeview will only show one name (the right most, which is often the local name for the street). > > > > * Now saves the last used setting for type of directions, and uses it the next time directions are requested. > > > > * Now asks you if you want the documentation and the Options dialog opened for you the first time the app is run. (this will happen once for all of you one time). > > > > * As always many bug fixes (including one where the web site buttons failed to work properly when you made use of the street filter on the search results dialog for near-by searches). > > > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > Chip > > > >
